NH robotics teams compete at world championship

Ten New Hampshire robotics teams were among 433 high school teams that competed in the VEX World Championship in Anaheim, Calif., April 23-26.

A Pembroke Academy team was the first from the state to compete for the world title.

Pembroke Academy’s team 134A, Team Discovery-Alpha, comprised of Joseph Landry and Jonah Mitchell, was part of the winning alliance in its division. Landry and Mitchell were one of three championship teams in the Arts Division.

Selected by two California teams to form an alliance, the team of Landry and Mitchell was part of an alliance that placed fifth in the world.

Pembroke Academy science teacher and robotics team mentor David Kelly said there were 15,000 people in attendance and when the Pembroke team “went up to the dome, I can’t imagine what it was like for Jonah and Joe.”

The competition began after last year’s world championship, with 10,000 teams from foreign countries as well as the United States competing for the right to go to the 2014 world championship.

New Hampshire sent 10 teams to this year’s world championship: three Pembroke teams; five from Manchester’s Trinity High School; one from Derry’s Pinkerton Academy; and one from Kennett High School in North Conway.

Through many competitions, New Hampshire teams won just under half of the 21 slots for the entire New England region, which included the Granite State, Massachusetts, Vermont and Rhode Island.

At the world competition in April, three Trinity teams won the teamwork award: 40A Canned Ham, 40J The Black Sandwich, and 40K The Shark Bomb.

The Pinkerton Astros finished 18th in their division and the Kennett Koders finished 25th in their division.

In the VEX IQ Challenge for elementary and middle school students, the St. Anthony Pack 118A team from Manchester placed 24th out of 60 teams in the elementary teamwork competition. One of the two Nashua MasterMinds teams, 10060, won the Energy Award.